Why art class can help you solve a protein structure

Oren, my friend and colleague at UCSF, got an MD and a PhD from Yale and has deep expertise in structural biology. This includes using all sorts of fancy techniques that I don’t understand: crystallography, electron microscopy, and small-angle x-ray scattering. After cutting his teeth on eukaryotes, he joined the dark side (microbiology) focusing on tuberculosis and other infectious diseases. His lab continues to push the field of structural biology forward into new and exciting areas, while also developing innovative new genetic techniques like a mobile CRISPR-Cas system that can be used to study diverse pathogenic and commensal bacteria. Hear how he made the shift from art (sculpture) to science and his remarkable journey from the ivy league, to Africa, and beyond.